fact, the honeymoon is scarcely over before he resumes the occupation
of love-making, only now those glances, those whispers, those adoring
protestations, are devoted to somebody else. He has coursed his hare
and captured her; he has charmed the bird off the bough and caged her.
Now he looks for a hare and a bird who are still at liberty, and still
can give him the pleasure of the chase.
Make love to one’s wife! He laughs in good-natured contempt at the
absurd suggestion, and with a final twist of his mustache, a final
survey of his invincible self in the mirror, he walks away, leaving la
signora or madame to pass her lonely hours as she will.
As a general thing, she contrives that they shall not be lonely. But,
after all, this is not the ideal marriage, is it? Now, if the signora
or madame is an American girl, accustomed to an American father and his
domestic manners, she doesn’t take to the new ways at all kindly. She
does not want to have some other woman’s husband come and sentimentally
console her for the desertion of her own spouse. Although in Rome, she
declines to do what the Romans do, but persists in demanding that Rome
should do as New York or Boston or Philadelphia does. She doesn’t
succeed in creating a new code of international marriage relations,
poor little soul, and the result is, as a usual thing, tragic. Either
she beats or bruises herself to pieces in dashing against the walls
of the inevitable, or she accepts her fate in a reckless spirit that
carries her a great deal too far. She does “console herself” with a
vengeance--and misery, warfare, perhaps divorce, perhaps death, are the
results.
But the more common form of international marriage is not between
an American and a Latin, but a sort of cousinly alliance between an
English, Irish or Scotchman with the American girl, whose blood is
generally derived from one or the other of these divisions of the
Anglo-Saxon race.
This arrangement does better than the Latin alliance, for there are
points in common between the mother country and her independent
daughter which make more harmony. There is a common language, generally
a common religion, and an unwritten code of ethics and manners, which
is pretty generally shared by each.
The British lover and the American lover are about on a par, although
the Englishman, as a general thing, assumes as soon as he is engaged a
certain air of authority and proprietorship which the American never
dreams of at any period of his career as a lover and husband.
I feel sure that in the English marriage service the “obey” is spelled
with a big “O,” for it seems the principal point of the bride’s new
duties, and the _fiancée_ is cheerfully ready to begin to practice her
obligations. If she tries to rebel, her mother and friends, perhaps
her betrothed himself, call her to account with the threat that if she
doesn’t take care she will lose her opportunity. Jack, or Tom, or Ned,
will feel that so untractable a girl will make a poor wife, and he will
be off his bargain.
Say that to an American girl, and what walls or roofs would contain
her scorn? She would return that young man’s rings and letters before
the hour was out, and not know him the next time she met him. But with
the English girl a different heredity and a different training have
produced an entirely different temperament. She also has insensibly
gathered from the mutual demeanor of her father and mother the standard
of matrimonial manners and obligations. She perceives that her mother’s
first duty is to defer in all things to her father; to provide for
his physical comfort at the expense perhaps of her own; to coax,
cajole, persuade or deceive him into consenting to an entertainment,
an expedition, a new gown or a new visitor. The father is a little
Jupiter, and the mother is an “ox-eyed Juno,” whose principal virtue is
amiable submission, and whose principal study is how to circumvent the
Thunderer.
Of course the girl accepts her father as the highest and noblest type
of husband, and her mother as the inevitable type of wife, and her
character molds itself insensibly to these limitations and upon these
lines. She becomes another attentive, submissive, furtive wife like her
mother, the charming English wife of an Englishman.
But make the marriage international, and the domestic machine declines
to run in any such time honored ruts. A broad-gauge engine will not,
_cannot_, adapt itself to a narrow gauge road, and some fearful
bolting, with very likely a catastrophe at the end, will be the result
of trying to make it.
The Englishman’s estimate of women, her rights, her privileges, her
duties, is altogether different from that of an American. Whatever
his outward demeanor in his own or other countries, his underlying
conviction is that--
“Woman is the lesser man;
All thy passions matched with mine
Are as water matched with wine,
Are as moonlight unto sunlight,
Nature made them blinder movements,
Bounded in a shallower brain.”
If the woman is bright, keen and well educated, he looks upon her as a
phenomenon and rather undesirable as a wife. His highest praise of her
achievements is that they are “almost worthy of a man.”
Perhaps--for, of course neither all Englishmen nor all Americans follow
one undeviating rule--perhaps he does honestly admire and appreciate
this intellectual phenomenon and wishes to marry her--that is, if she
has money--for not even in the Sublime Porte is marriage more of a
commercial transaction than in England. Walpole’s famous utterance
that “every man has his price” is most applicable to the matrimonial
market. Has the American bride of an Englishman a fortune (and she is
not likely to become his bride if she has none), she is expected to
relinquish it into his hands either entirely, or with the reserve of a
certain amount settled upon herself and her children. If the property
is not of a nature to be definitely settled, she binds herself to make
over a stated portion of her income for his sole use, and perhaps
in addition she pays all the expenses of the _ménage_--in fact, an
Englishman is not ashamed to allow his wife to pay for his bread and
butter, and in addition to give him the money to buy his cigars.
But women--that is to say, American women--do not generally care much
about money, and are very willing to give it to the man who professes
to love them, and whom they intend to love for life, honor so far as
he is worthy of honor, and obey in love’s sweet humility so long as
obedience is the reasonable and voluntary expression of love.
But long before the honeymoon is over the young wife discovers her
mistake. The lever-like attitude of the Englishman drops away like the
petals of an overblown rose, and leaves nothing but sturdy wood and
pitiless thorns. The irksome deference he has, through the season of
courtship, felt obliged to pay to the delicacy or the prejudices of his
_fiancée_ is thrown aside with the wedding coat, and the most _négligé_
of smoking jackets and slippers are figuratively assumed. He tells his
wife stories that would startle a messroom or a club parlor. He flatly
contradicts her; he leaves her to get around by herself, or to be
escorted by any one who will take pity on her; he gruffly demands why
this or that matter has not been attended to; he leaves her at home
while he enjoys himself abroad; he allows her, if she will do it, to
wait upon him like a servant, while he lounges upon a sofa; he lets
her carry her own wraps and escort herself to her carriage. In fact,
he utterly fails in that tender deference and ever-present care, that
prevoyance which is so natural to the American gentleman, the American
husband in every class, that American women often fail to appreciate
it unless through observing or experiencing an international marriage,
they discover how precious a birth-right they have sold for a mess of
pottage and go mourning all their lives.
Every rule has its exceptions, no doubt, but, _as_ a rule the American
husband is the best husband in the world.
V.
AS TO GOOD MANNERS.
A wise woman of our own day has pithily asked, “Is polite society
polite?” And nobody has satisfactorily made reply because, I suppose,
nobody has yet decided just who is polite society, and just what is
politeness. And, after all, how can anybody arbitrarily decide either
question? The polite society of our American metropolis is usually
described as the Four Hundred, because Mr. Ward McAllister once said
that there were only four hundred people in New York who could be said
to be “in society.”
But even in New York Mr. McAllister’s dictum was not received as law
and gospel by all the hundreds of thousands of persons who inhabit the
great city, and probably the millions who make up the rest of the
population of these United States have a most republican disregard of
any dictum upon the subject.
The polite society of any city, town or village in our country is its
own most respected citizens. In a monarchy this is not so, for to every
kingdom there is a court, and the fashions of royalty and its court are
the fashions of the subjects. In other words, a kingdom has an official
polite society, and the gold stick in waiting could rattle you off the
names of the Four Hundred under his anxious charge as a shepherd could
tell his sheep.
In such an order of society etiquette is laid down so clearly and so
strictly that polite society has no choice as to its manners, and those
manners are, as you may say, polite ex-officio. In our own land there
is no central authority upon social subjects, and, in fact, upon a good
many subjects not social--but that is neither here nor there--and with
all its faults “my country, ’tis of thee” that I boast whenever I am
out of it.
So let everybody corporate take its own polite society and consider
whether its politeness leaves anything to be desired. Somebody has said
that good manners are the expression of good feeling, and to a certain
extent this is correct; for a selfish or ill-natured person, if ever so
well trained in social etiquette, is liable to break down under sudden
stress of circumstance, while the good heart will come to the front in
an emergency and prompt the very truest acts of politeness.
The best test of good manners which I have ever seen is hunger.
Take a party of travelers when the train breaks down forty miles
from everywhere, and the sandwich baskets have all given out. An
enterprising youth has made his way across the prairie and brought a
limited amount of sustenance. Now is the time to apply the touchstone
to the laborious politeness of the man who has been metaphorically
spreading his velvet cloak under your feet for hundreds of miles. Does
he struggle to fully supply your wants before attending to his own, or
does he mysteriously disappear for a few moments and return, bringing
you a small piece of gingerbread, while the crumbs of bread and meat
and pastry lurk unsuspected in his beard?
I have under similar circumstances seen a gentleman, whose pretensions
even Mr. McAllister would not have questioned, intercept the
approaching commissary wagon and fill his own pockets to overflowing
before the women and children and invalids of the party had a chance.
On the same occasion I saw a brakeman, with a quarter of a mince pie in
his hand, take one heroic bite from its point, and then thrust the rest
into the hand of a poor old man, who had not money to buy anything, and
to whom no man had given.
But the greedy pig of a gentleman had charming manners, and the
generous brakeman hadn’t a manner to his name!
In less extreme cases who has not seen men and women who claim to be
the very pinks of politeness grow surly, or peevish when dinner was
delayed, or when some favorite or anticipated dish was spoiled, or
when the choice bit of the bird or the joint was given to some one
else? A picnic or any other of those irregular and most uncomfortable
_al fresco_ meals which romantic persons are so fond of arranging,
is a splendid opportunity for studying manners. Being out-of-doors
and liberated from the usual environment of civilized life, seems to
give the opportunity to those who wish it for a temporary return to
barbarism. To sit upon the ground and eat with one’s fingers, to share
a drinking vessel with several others, and to devour one’s food in
a semi-raw and semi-charred condition are among the delights of the
picnic, where you make a fire and cook something, a process which to
many people is the acme of joyous freedom and holiday making. But all
these delights we share with the savage, and in accepting them we are
very apt to accept his manners as well--that is to say, those persons
are apt to whose politeness is veneered upon their natural temperament,
and is not its necessary outgrowth. Not only do greedy people show
forth their greediness and intemperate people their intemperance, but
the man radically coarse shows forth his coarseness as he never would
do beneath a roof; the silly man, or more probably the silly woman,
proves herself a fool; the tyrant domineers openly and rudely--every
one, in fact, returns to the brutal frankness of the untutored savage,
and for an hour or so throws aside the mask and domino of polite
society.
So true is this criterion that I hereby advise every woman to delay
accepting the man who woos her until she has spent a day with him at a
picnic, or some other form of “pleasuring” under the greenwood tree.
But, short of such extreme conditions as these, is polite society
polite? That is to say, I inquire confidentially, Is your polite
society polite? And I will tell you if mine is.
Do you live in a great city where, at certain hours of the day, the
public conveyances are crowded sometimes to excess? If so, you have
an admirable opportunity to study the innate politeness of the “best
people” of your acquaintance, keeping yourself well out of sight. The
much argued question about a man’s right to keep his seat and let a
woman stand is an excellent touchstone. I do not myself consider that
every man is bound to relinquish his seat to every woman under all
circumstances, but this rule of exceptions has been seized upon by the
majority of the male sex as a rule of self indulgence seldom to be set
aside. I frequently hear men say, with a sort of brutal pride in their
frank selfishness:
“I give up my seat to a very old woman, or a very pretty woman, or an
acquaintance; but as for the rest, they can stand just as well as I
can.”
Another form of defense is: “I am coming home tired from my business
and want to sit down and rest. Why should I give up my seat to a
healthy young girl who has been down town shopping for her own
amusement?”
Well, he shouldn’t; but how much is taken for granted in this
argument? All young women are not healthy and strong, although they
may be about and look pretty well. How is a stranger to know that the
“girl” has been downtown shopping for her own amusement? And is a tired
girl or woman to be refused the opportunity for rest, if she wants it,
even if she has been “shopping for her own amusement?”
Shopping, as all women know, is very fatiguing, and often requires a
good deal of running about and standing and waiting, and, above all,
is tiring to the nerves and exhausting to the lungs, which are forced
to inhale a great amount of vitiated and overheated air. If the man
who makes this excuse is really too tired to stand, or too much out
of health to bear the fatigue, or too much broken down by work and
worry, he has the right to keep his seat, unless the woman who wants it
has all these claims to indulgence to a degree exceeding his own; but
then comes the question, In what character will that man appear in the
evening?
Will he continue to present himself as the overworked and overweary
business drudge? Will he pose contentedly as an invalid, or a
broken-down, middle-aged man, one to whom his own fireside, his
slippers and jacket and newspapers are the luxuries of his hours of
rest? If so, all is well, and you or I, or any kindly woman, would
gladly give him our own seat in the car or any other help that we could.
But if this same man, after a good dinner and a careful toilet, goes
forth into society with the air of a _preux chevallier_, professing
devotion to every woman he meets, and offering chairs that are not
wanted, and an arm that is not needed to ladies quite as healthy and
quite as devoted to their own amusement as those he left to stand at
his elbow in the cars, why, then I say this member of polite society is
not polite.
But let us be just and lay the lash upon our own shoulders if it is
needed, as well as upon those of our erring brother.
When a tired man, no longer in the vigor of youth, offers a seat to
a woman who is not tired and is strong and well, let her decline it,
graciously but decidedly, and continue to stand, even if he does also.
To take the place of a man who needs it when you do not need it proves
you not truly polite, although you may be a star of the most polite
society in the world. I know one young woman, and not a girl, nor a
remarkably robust person either, who often declines an offered seat,
saying brightly: “No, thank you. I enjoy standing. I do it from choice.”
I do not know that she is among the Four Hundred, but she is polite.
Another way in which professionally polite persons are apt to prove
themselves not polite from the heart, is in the treatment of elderly or
stupid or tiresome persons of no social consequence.
To converse with attention and animation is very easy if the other
party is agreeable, or very pretty, or a social magnate, especially if
of the opposite sex, but for a woman to bring out her best manner, or
her prettiest smile, or her entire attention for the benefit of a deaf
old lady, with nothing particular to recommend her, or for a man to
allow a male dunce to talk politics to him and express his views on the
tariff question and explain what the president ought to have said in
his message, and not show signs of annoyance or contempt, is the true
politeness which society does not always appreciate, or rather does not
discriminate from its poor electroplate counterfeit.
Another glaring impoliteness of most polite society is its
self-absorption. It is so difficult for persons who set themselves
up as standards to understand that there are other standards in the
world, and other people are following them, and that one class is just
as important to itself as the other. Sometimes very polite persons
take note of the aliens revolving in another sphere in a good-humored
spirit of curiosity and indulgence, asking patronizing questions and
exclaiming in pleasant astonishment at customs and phrases not their
own, and feel that they are showing themselves very liberal and kindly
in their ways; but that line of conduct is no more polite than it
is for the other sort to ask questions and make comments and handle
ornaments and laugh at fashions which they, in turn, think strange and
droll.
True politeness, like true godliness, is to respect other persons, not
only in their rights, but in their tastes, and to carry into practice
the rugged theory that “one man is as good as another, and perhaps a
good deal more so.”
It was a member of very polite society--it was, in fact, a peeress
of Great Britain--who tried one Sunday to hear Spurgeon preach, but
failing to find a seat, audibly remarked to her daughter:
“Come away. We’ve done the polite to God, and that’s enough.”
We all have heard of the queen among the Four Hundred, who, when a
guest broke a precious plate, immediately dropped the nut crackers
upon another and smashed it also, remarking, “These plates break if
you touch them.” But to my mind that was not the exquisite piece
of politeness it is generally considered. It was overstrained and
obvious, and the guest doubtless felt herself accountable for two
plates instead of one. Politeness must not be unnatural or artificial,
if it is to ring true and clear. It must be the honest outcome of a
sincere regard for other people.
Any reference whatever to age is a crude and dangerous compliment to
man or woman. I saw a lady of eighty-five seriously annoyed lately by a
young man who asked her how young men dressed when she was young.
“In motley caps and bells, with baubles in their hands, much as they
do now,” replied she, glancing at the fancy cane with which the youth
tapped his beardless chin.
Another impoliteness is to try too much to help those who, while
actually helpless, do not wish to appear so. Do not ask a lame man if
this path is not too steep or these steps too high, and propose that
he take the easy road, while every one else climbs the difficult one.
Let him choose for himself. Do not officiously offer to read things for
persons who do not mention their want of eyesight. Do not shout at
deaf persons until you find they cannot hear a low, distinct utterance.
Do not look sympathetically at a hunchback, or sentimentally lower your
voice and speak in a tone of plaintive indulgence to one whom you know
to be unhappy, unless they talk to you of their sorrow. In one word, do
not let your companion perceive that you notice his or her weak point,
but conduct yourself exactly as if it did not exist.
A thoroughly polite person can look upon the most ridiculous or painful
object without the slightest expression of surprise, and can listen to
the most absurd mistakes or ludicrous malapropisms with eyes of serene
attention and lips of gentle acquiescence. And polite society very,
very often fails to be polite in those and kindred niceties of the art.
VI.
ABOUT MARRIAGE.
The query, Is marriage a failure? which has been echoing from shore to
shore, and enjoying, more or less seriously, the attention of thousands
of English-speaking men and women, is, after all, only another form of
that other popular query: Is life worth the living? In the one case and
in the other, it is not so much a question of accepting or refusing
the inevitable, but of how to use certain conditions imposed upon us
by the laws of our being. For, let it be a failure, or let it be a
success, marriage is an institution that has come to stay; and to vote
it down would be about as insane and suicidal a policy as to say: The
air is a failure; it is raw and creepy, and causes rheumatism, catarrh,
phthisis and all sorts of other evils; let us, then, hermetically seal
our doors and windows, and eliminate air from our scheme of living.
Doubtless we could follow this wise counsel, and doubtless we should
soon be cured of all the ills that air produces and flesh is heir to.
Pardon the pun; but I just read that no woman had sufficient sense of
humor to make a pun, so I was constrained by the innate contrariness of
woman to make as vile a one as any man could.
Well, then, the mutual attraction of the sexes, and the impulses of
human nature being what they are, and have been since Adam wooed Eve
as the crowning delight of Paradise, and Cain went out and found
himself a wife as the surest mitigation of the curse laid upon him,
the association of a man and woman who find each other congenial and
attractive will doubtless continue to be the rule of life until life
shall be no more; and as we Anglo Saxon-Latins claim to be the flower
and fruit and crown of civilization, it is not worth discussing whether
we shall revert to the condition of the lowest savages and cease to
dignify and solemnize these unions by the accepted forms of marriage.
Probably no woman, however “emancipated,” intends seriously to inquire
whether we shall do away with marriage, although marriage stands
confessed as the parent of much misery and discontent. No woman
possessed of average common sense, setting aside such minor virtues
as purity, delicacy and self-respect, would advocate the abrogation
of a system which is her own protection against the degradation of a
deserted old age.